Shin Megami Tensei V Vegneance shows off what is different right away by giving you a choice whether or not to bring a girl into the world with you. If you leave her behind, then you will start the “Canon of Creation”, aka the standard vanilla campaign. But if you choose to bring her into the world with you, things go in another direction and you will begin the new “Canon of Vengeance” storyline that is the selling point of this version
To give a reminder, Shin Megami Tensei V has a character known as the Nahobino as the protagonist, a human merged with a demon who must save Tokyo from destruction. The destruction may come from Angels or Demons and your choices make a major difference in the game, along with the sidequests and story dialogue. Basically a story present in every Shin Megami Tensei game, but greatly expanded on here with new ways of experiencing things.
Canon of Vengeance starts things off strong, with a tough challenge for players, even those well versed in Vanilla Shin Megami Tensei V, and the characters introduced feel like great additions. The new character plays a great role in the game and some of the initial bosses will be easier when compared with Vanilla, but things will soon pick up. New bosses are present as well and the gameplay ends up balancing out, which keeps the pacing of the two campaigns along the same lines.
As with Vanilla Shin Megami Tensei V. the battle system in Vengeance uses the series’ trademark “Press Turn” mechanics turn based combat where the party and enemies have a number of icons. The party gets one icon per active party member, while some harder enemies have multiple icons per member, and these icons disappear as members take their turn. However, some actions like landing a critical or elemental weakness hit or swapping a member of the party in battle enable you to get an extra turn, while missing an attack or having an attack elementally blocked will see two icons taken away.
Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance does add something new here, such as quests and random rewards that give new abilities for specific classes or alignments of demons that you can use when the Maghatsui., while the Nahobino’s “every hit is critical for that round” Maghatsui move is still the same. Another change is that there are a lot more guest party members that are human characters. These characters can change the entire dynamic of the battles for one reason, their ability to use items in battle, which means they can use inexpensive items to hit elemental weaknesses even without knowing attacks of that element or a use Dampener that will give an auto-block to the entire party. It is a small touch but it is a massive gamechanger when used properly, and that is a neat change.
One other change in Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance is in the demon recruitment. It starts off the same, but now there is a Gold Card item that will serve as an automatic recruitment if there is a free slot in the party. However, a more significant difference with the demons is that they now have a character alignment on the “law, neutral, chaos” spectrum that affects some of the special techniques. Lastly, there is the “Demon Haunt” that lets you have conversations with demons and the party, and you can even get items and stat boosts randomly as a result of this while they’re in your party.
The new campaign in Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance has an overall story that goes in a different direction that Vanilla Shin Megami Tensei V, but in a way that feels just right. It is good that both campaigns are included here, so no one only experiences one version like with some updated releases, though the Vanilla version has received some upgrades in terms of appearance as well. The new story campaign will satisfy longtime fans and fans of Shin Megami Tensei V’s vanilla release, while giving essentially double the RPG experience.
Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance plays great on Switch in docked and handheld mode and there are no real hiccups that I have encountered so far. The frame rate is reduced on the Switch when compared to the more powerful systems, but the experience can still be fully enjoyed without major issue and the Switch does not hold the game back at all. I was concerned about this, but Atlus did a great job here.
Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance looks and sounds wonderful, with upgrades to the visuals that were in the vanilla version of Shin Megami Tensei V, while adding in some great new music as well. Even minor touches like some of the character’s appearances being improved are noticeable, as are the new demon designs. Plus the large amount of new demons in Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance just makes the game feel a bit more complete in the long run.
For those playing on Nintendo Switch, Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance is indeed worth getting even if you already had the vanilla version. There is a good amount of content added and enough changes to the Vanilla campaign that it justifies the price of another version. For those playing on other systems, this is easily worth the price of admission, to play the game for the first time, as it is one of the best Atlus has produced. Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance is a game we can easily recommend, and there is much to enjoy here.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
